Andrew Lambirth

Titian’s touch of genius

Andrew Lambirth on the National Gallery's magnificent show of this Renaissance giant

Walking around this exhibition is a humbling experience. We are privileged to have a display of paintings of this quality in London, and it is an incredible achievement to have obtained loans of such distinction. One of the pictures scheduled for the show is not in fact available, ‘Sacred and Profane Love’ from the Villa Borghese in Rome, but two late additions more than compensate for its absence. One is the ‘Crucifixion with Saint Dominic’ from Ancona (which was so last-minute that it hadn’t yet arrived when I previewed the exhibition), and the other is the magnificent ‘Flaying of Marsyas’ from the Czech Republic. When ‘Marsyas’ was last seen in London at the Royal Academy 20 years ago in The Genius of Venice exhibition, we were warned that we’d never see it again in England. Now, almost at the 11th hour, it has been secured for this exhibition. David JaffZ, the exhibition’s curator, must take a lot of the credit for this, and deserves our gratitude. Titian, which runs until 18 May, is the first of a trio of Renaissance exhibitions to be mounted at the National, followed by El Greco and Raphael next year. If they are anywhere near as good as this, we are in for serious delights.

This show could have truthfully been entitled The Genius of Titian, without exaggeration or embarrassment. Six galleries trace the development of his work from a contemplative ‘Virgin and Child’ (known as ‘The Gypsy Madonna’) dated c.1511, when he would have been about 20 years old, to the last great works of his old age such as ‘Saint Jerome in Penitence’ from 1575. That first painting shadows forth so much that Titian was to make his own: the ability to differentiate textures, playing off flesh and fabric with carefully controlled exuberance, the subtle modulation of colour, the convincing emotional content, and the exceptionally skilful evocation of landscape.

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